World Footy News

The NAB Challenge for 2015 has been in swing for a few days now. First cab off the rank was Collingwood defeating Hawthorn at Aurora Stadium in Launceston, Tasmania. Friday night saw the West Coast Eagles dispose of Carlton at Mandurah, south of Perth. The Saturday games saw the Brisbane Lions just hold on against St Kilda at Burpengary, a northern suburb of Brisbane whilst at the old Whitten Oval in Footscray the modern day Western Bulldogs comfortably accounted for Richmond.

But today was the second biggest AFL day in North Queensland when Townsville hosted their own NAB Challenge match at Tony Ireland Stadium. In a fixture that has now been in place for three years, the largest city north of Brisbane once again came alive to the sounds of sirens, cheering, trampled hot chips and umpire whistles.

In front of a crowd well over 4000 people, and on a hot day with 32 degrees and light winds, it was an undermanned Gold Coast Suns that got the biscuits, downing the Geelong Cats by 8 points in the end. Two late goals from Cat recruit, Mitch Clark, just made the score more respectable, but it was the Suns’ day.
For the people of the city of Townsville the chance to hold yet another AFL pre-season match will be a huge coup for the local competitions. Geelong players visited students at Shalom College on arrival and a “Super Saturday” event was help at Tony Ireland Stadium for meeting players and watching the Cats train.

AFL Queensland Regional Manager, Kath Newman, was quoted in the Townsville Bulletin newspaper saying ““We’re so lucky to have a team like Geelong who have been in the finals for so long and the Suns are looking to make the finals this year so we have two really good teams.” She added that ““It’s about bringing footy to the community.”

As a curtain raiser to the main event the Townsville v Army match was again played to showcase local talent.

For the Gold Coast Suns it was a big day as it marked the first win for new coach Rodney Eade who took over the role when former coach, Guy McKenna was dumped by the club. Word is that the Suns have a lot of firepower this year and will challenge for a finals berth. That is hard to argue when their list today was missing names like Ablett, O’Meara, Prestia, May, Dixon, Thompson and new young gun jack Martin. In contrast, the Cats went in without skipper Joel Selwood and the mercurial Steve Johnson, but had most other hands on deck.

Townsville has now played its part in the 2015 AFL calendar and the North Queensland public will now wait for July 11th when Cazalys Stadium plays host to the Western Bulldogs v Gold Coast Suns premiership match in Round 15.

For the full schedule of remaining NAB Challenge matches, go to the following link: http://www.afl.com.au/fixture/nab-challenge







Left: Suns v Cats at Tony Ireland Stadium (Picture: AFL Media - http://www.afl.com.au/ )